Rev8
by minmb82
Summary: Rev8


**Chapter 8**

_Raista, 16 Shiaa , 4408, Faey Orthodox Calendar_

_ Saturday, 21 July 2022 Terran Standard Calendar_

_ Raista, 16 Shiaa, year 1333 of the 97__th__ Generation, Karinne Historical Reference Calendar_

_The White House, Karsa, Karis_

He was almost late for a very important appointment, and it seemed that the fates were conspiring to make him even more late..

Actually, it wasn't so much an appointment as it was the opportunity to witness the dismantling of a massive embezzlement scheme personally. Brayrak Kruu had finished his investigation and given them the green light to take down the DFM, and Jason wanted to be there in person to watch as the Secretary was dragged out of his office in handcuffs.

The results of that investigation was going to create some friction in Jason's personal life, because they'd tracked the identity of the computer mastermind that set up the embezzlement scheme back to _Yila Trefani_. He hadn't confronted her over it yet, and for that matter wasn't sure if she knew about it, but the hacker that set it up was one of hers, a hacker that worked for one of House Trefani's many front corporations that concealed their illegal revenue. The question was, was he working freelance or was this one of Yila's schemes.

That would have to wait for tomorrow, though, because Kim had told him that they were moving on the DFM in about two hours, so he needed to get over there. But there was someone standing in his way, someone that he couldn't just browbeat into moving so he could go about his business…Songa.

There was an outbreak of a new and fairly nasty strain of Shio Danza Flu in New York City, so Jason was waiting for her to send over a viral monitor he'd have to take with him that would detect the virus if he was exposed to it. Danza Flu was a very rare but exceptionally nasty virus, like Terran Ebola on steroids, and it was invariably fatal if left untreated. The problem was, it had no innoculant or vaccine, no way to vaccinate to protect against it, because the virus mutated so much that a vaccine was no longer effective against it after barely a month. There was a medicine that could counter the active virus, but the Medical Service didn't administer that medicine unless the patient was infected to prevent the virus from adapting to the medicine. The only way to fight Danza Flu was to cure it once it infected the patient. The current strain had a shockingly short incubation time, able to kill within 30 hours of the victim contracting it, but treating it was as easy as taking a pill or getting a shot once it was diagnosed. That was why he needed a viral monitor, because of that very short incubation period.

So, while this may not be the best time in the world to go to New York City, Jason was determined to see this through. He had a very personal connection to the farm workers, and he wanted to be there in person to watch them take down someone that was harming them.

_[Hurry up, woman, I'm going to be late!]_ Jason barked over the biogenic network.

_[We're almost done programming it, dear, so put a sock in it,]_ she retorted. _[We had to download the most recent analysis of the virus to catch four different new mutations of the base virus. Remember, if the sensor indicates exposure, you have to go through level three decon when you get back to the ship, then report immediately to sickbay once decon is complete.]_

_ [I know decon protocols woman, sheesh,]_ he sniped acidly.

_[As loose with the rules as you've been over the last couple of years, we're just making sure,]_ she teased. _[We're starting to think your title is going to your head, dear.]_

_ [Oh, it's on now, bitch,]_ he threatened, which caused her to return pure mirth over the network.

Fifteen minutes later, during which time Jason armored up, a courier delivered the sensor and he was on his way. Aya still wouldn't let him go to Terra in anything less than a KMS vessel, so he was ferried over on the destroyer _Stralla_, one of the newest ships in the fleet. It had built as part of the fleet expansion, and had only been activated after sitting in mothballs for eight months. It had taken that long for Juma to scrape together a crew for the ship. Like most new destroyers, it was commanded by a captain that came up from the frigate fleet. The _Stralla_ and her crew were still very green, so green that the navigator nearly bottomed out the destroyer trying to make a water landing at the dock on the strip. It was a good thing he was going slow, else he would have created a giant wave that would have swamped the beach.

He chose to ignore that. Besides, he was sure the navigator was _humiliated_ over it, and certainly would be getting an earful from Captain Demial once Jason was off the ship.

He met the chagrined-looking Jirunji captain at the hatch once the ship was at the proper level with the dock, and he had the grace not to mention it as he came in. "I'm in a hurry, Demi, so get me to Terra quick," he said as Dera and Ryn filed in behind him. "We're on a schedule."

"Yes, your Grace," she replied in a nervous tone, looking up at him. Jirunji weren't exactly a tall species, most of them only came up to Jason's chest. "I'm sorry about—"

"Less talking, more moving," he said in a kind tone, giving her a slight smile.

She returned it. "Yes, your Grace," she replied, putting a finger to her interface and ordering the navigator to get them moving, even as the hatch closed. Demial escorted him to the stateroom just off the landing bay, and he sat down and reviewed the charges they were going to file against 19 workers in the DFM, the Secretary, both of his Undersecretaries, five section managers, and eleven middle managers, all of which were in on the embezzlement scheme and who were receiving a cut of the profits from it. He reviewed a report Miaari sent him about the hacker, who was known in the Imperium underground as ShadowXV, real name Stonn Doherre, 29 years old and a known member of a hacking ring that was run by the House of Trefani as part of their cybercrime operation. He was one of the most prolific and notorious hackers in the Imperium, whose claim to fame was hacking the Civnet site for the Imperial Palace and replacing a picture of Dahnai with a picture of Ba'mra'ei M'ber, the Bari-Bari member of the Alliance Council, who had been High Staff before Ethikk. That stunt cost him eight months in prison (he was only 24 when he did it, so he was still a minor under Imperium law and thus got a very light sentence), but it hadn't dissuaded him in the slightest. He went underground and right back to hacking after he was released. The Kimdori had kept a passive eye on him, mainly for curiosity's sake, but also because a hacker with his kind of talent could be very useful if the Kimdori needed to take a very subtle approach to a problem. That was how they'd known where he was when his involvement in the ring became apparent. According to the file they had on him, he had a very selfish and self-centered personality. If they put some pressure on him, he'd cut a deal and turn on his co-conspirators to get a reduced sentence.

Like that mattered, since the Kimdori could learn everything he knew about the operation with a single touch.

He hoped Yila had nothing to do with this. If she did…_fuck_ was it going to cause some major upheaval in the House. The Trefanis were deeply intertwined in Karinne business operations, part of Yila's above-board business empire, and he really, _really_ didn't want to have to start untangling his house from hers. That was why Jason suspected she might not have anything to do with this, because she knew that Jason could bring ruin to her house, and she knew how protective he was over Terra. She should have the sense to stay well the hell away from any criminal operation that involved Terra's government.

Demial got him to Terra a good 45 minutes before the Imperial Marines were going to move on the DFM, and managed to get to their staging area in the New York barracks. The Imperial Marines still worked on Terra as law enforcement, for they were the "global police" the U.N. used to enforce global law inside the individual nations. Local and national matters were handled internally, but when it turned into a global issue or a suspect crossed international lines, the Imperial Marines had jurisdiction.

The very threat of the Imperial Marines kept the nations or Terra from testing the authority of the U.N. They enforced U.N. law, and they were damn good at it.

Despite it being so long since Jyslin was a Marine, and her not serving with any of the Marines on Terra, Jason was greeted as one of them when he entered the barracks. The Marines saw Jason as the husband of a Marine far more than they saw him as the Grand Duke Karinne, and once a Marine, always a Marine. That was something that annoyed Dahnai to no end, that Jason was very nearly as popular within the Imperial Marines as she was.

That was her fault. The entire corps knew that a division of the Imperial Marines was attached to the KMS. Kei was part of a unit of 200 Imperial Marine mindstrikers that still worked with KMS riggers and fighter pilots, as well as trained KMS mindstrikers in the craft. The Imperial Marines were, by far, the best mindstrikers in the business. Kei and the others in her unit were all but part of the KMS anymore, permanent residents of Karis that worked in a permanent detachment of Marines attached to the KMS, which was set up by Lorna and had Jason and Dahnai's full approval.

Kei was still his assigned mindstriker when he ran missions that required one. They worked well together, and Kei was someone that both the Kimdori and the KMS trusted explicitly to work with the Grand Duke.

Jason more or less had to do it, Kei was friends with half the strip girls and was part of Jyslin's inner circle of close friends, and they would have rioted if Jason sent her and her unit back to Draconis after the Syndicate War. It was an arrangement that both Jason and Dahnai found eminently satisfactory. The KMS got top-tier mindstrikers for both active missions and training, and Dahnai had some of her own soldiers inside the KMS to keep her apprised of what was going on, as well as having training on KMS equipment far beyond any other military unit in the CCM. Kei was rated on every rig in the KMS inventory except Cheetahs, knew how to operate every military drone in the inventory, and like KMS Marines and Tarks, had training in Naval damage control operations so they could assist a ship's crew with damage control when needed. No other member of an outside military organization had that kind of training on KMS assets, with the exception of the Imperial Guard.

The Guard was _technically_ a military organization, but its sole mission was the protection of the Empress and her family. In the pursuit of that mission, the Imperial Guard was trained on every KMS mecha and weapon, and many of them had Naval training that would allow them to crew a KMS vessel. They had that training for the simple reason that Dahnai rode on KMS ships often enough for them to need it, so the Guard was capable of crewing those ships if some kind of disaster occurred and the crew was incapacitated.

The Guard was trained on _everything_, a shining example of the complete trust Jason had in the Imperial Guard. He trusted them with his life and the lives of his family, and he would honor that trust by teaching them things, revealing to them secrets, that no one else would ever learn.

It took the Marines only about fifteen minutes to get ready for the operation, and then they were on the move. Jason rode with them in their transport, which was big enough to hold all the prisoners, and filed out with them when they reached the building holding the Department of Farm Management, a skyscraper in Manhattan not far from where the twin towers once stood. It was a big building with 31 different departments, and the department they were going to raid was on the 45th floor, which meant they had no way to escape once the Marines sealed off the ground floor exits and the rooftop landing pad. But, just in case someone in there had a hoverboard or something, twelve Marines used the grav pods in their armor to surround the building along the 50th floor, staying out of sight of their target floor and keeping an eye out for anyone that might try to bail out a window.

Jason could barely contain a smile as they got off the elevator and entered the Office of Farm Worker Services, which covered the management and benefits of both current farm workers and the survivors of the Trillane slave farms. He stood in the small lobby that led into the cubicle farms and offices and watched with satisfaction as the Marines stormed the office and started dragging people out of offices, one of them by the hair, lining them up inside the lobby. He then went with ten Marines that went up to the 83rd floor, and there, they dragged the two Undersecretaries and the Secretary of the DFM out of their offices, much to the shock of their secretaries and the security personnel stationed on the floor.

They had the sense not to say a word, or try to stop the Imperial Marines. They knew that the Marines were very heavy-handed with anyone that challenged their authority.

It was Jason himself that stepped up to the indignant older man, screaming at the Marines that he was going to have their heads for this outrage, and who fell silent when he realized that the Grand Duke Karinne was with them Marines. "Steven Flint, you are under arrest for the embezzlement of benefit funds earmarked for the farm worker survivors from the subjugation," he intoned formally, his voice calm but carrying the weight of a thousand anvils.

"That's a shameful lie!" he snapped, and flinched when one of the Marines slapped him lightly on the top of the head.

"Taking the money meant to help those suffering people was the biggest mistake you ever made, asshole," Jason grated at him. "And if I can prove that any of them died because you denied them the services they were entitled to under the law in order to steal the money that funded those services, you will be charged with _murder_," he said with sudden heat in his voice.

"The U.N.—"

"Has ceded jurisdiction over your prosecution to the _House of Karinne_," he snapped in reply, which made the man pale. "Under the Terra Operations Management Proclamation of 4392, the House of Karinne can claim jurisdiction over anyone who violates the order's provisions, and one of them set up the farm worker survivor program you've been robbing very nearly since the day it was created. That means that all three of you will be prosecuted in the _Karinne _legal system, not _Terra's _legal system. Lieutenant, take them in, book them, and prepare them for extradition to Justice One," Jason ordered the Marine officer in charge. Justice One was an orbital station orbiting Janja that held a detention facility and all the infrastructure needed for trials to be held, both for the prosecution and the defense. Not even criminals from the outside arrested by the house were allowed to come to Karis.

"With pleasure, your Grace," she replied with a cutting smile while looking at the Secretary and his two lackeys.

It was the high point of his month watching the Marines drag the two men and woman towards the elevator, who had all the bluster sucked right out of them by the revelation that the _Karinnes_ would be the one dropping the hammer on them. People like them, high in the U.N. government, they had power and connections that would let them get off the hook with light sentences, or even get off completely, but they had no such sway within the Karinne justice system. By being tried by the Karinnes, they would be held fully accountable for their crimes, which was why Jason claimed jurisdiction over them. The U.N. would prosecute the other 15 participants in the scheme, while the three participants with extensive political connections would face justice from a system they could not influence.

Jason got back on the ship in a very good mood, which was immediately soured when the viral monitor attached to his armor triggered before the dropship could open the hatch. He and the flight crew had been exposed to the Danza virus, which meant they had to go through level three decon…and that was _not fun_. The first step was using the "surface purge" mode of the dropship's IP system, sending a sufficient charge through the hull using the IP system to fry any viral structures clinging to it. The bay was evacuated and its atmosphere pulled out, reducing it to a vacuum, and then Jason and the two pilots had to put on their helmets, step outside into the vacuum and allow a team to enter the dropship to decontaminate the interior, and then enter the decon chamber. There they had to strip naked, their armor put in a sealed container for decon, then endure nearly thirty minutes of various liquid showers and exposure to low-intensity radiation that would kill all viral structures on their skin and in their hair. After all that, they put on maintenance jumpsuits and reported to sickbay, because exposure to the virus meant they had to take the counteragent.

And that ran him into the first snag of the day. As he and the flight crew sat in sickbay, the ship's lead doctor approached him with a chagrined look on her face. "They loaded the wrong antiviral agent, your Grace," she told him. "I'm afraid you'll have to go to the Medical Annex when we get home and get it there."

"Given we're going straight home, I don't think that's going to be a big problem, Doctor," Jason told her.

"Well, you'll have to wear an E-suit," she said apologetically. "You're only permitted thirty minutes outside of containment after decon to get vaccinations. There's a chance that by the time we get to Karis, the virus might have had the chance to start to reproduce. So we're bringing E-suits for you and the flight crew to wear until you get to Karis."

"Eh, medical E-suits aren't that bad," he shrugged. "Now engineering E-suits, on the other hand, no."

She chuckled. "I apologize again for the inconvenience, your Grace," she said as a nurse brought in three medical E-suits. They were made of a soft, supple material that was actually fairly comfortable, since they were designed to be worn by someone wearing a skinsuit under it, which was a paper thin polymer material that medical personnel wore that protected the skin from potential exposure to microbes.. That was very much unlike an engineering E-suit, which was built to be able to handle being rubbed and pressed and snagged on metal surfaces that may have sharp edges. The interior lining was very soft, but the suit's sturdy material didn't like to bend, which led to chafing in some very sensitive areas.

So, instead of going back to the office to find out if ShadowXV had been picked up yet, Jason instead got thrown into Songa's tiger cage, where she absolutely adored aggravating the everliving fuck out of him while she had him on her table. After giving him the small red pill that was the antiviral agent that would purge the Danza virus from his body, She took the opportunity of him being there to run a few tests that had nothing to do with why he was there. Jason supposed it was his fault, since he tended to blow off Songa and her endless tests and needles unless he felt he had a good reason to go, and his behavior just reinforced his desire to avoid Songa because it meant that any time he did go, he ended up getting stuck there way longer than he intended.

And today was no different. When the flight crew was in and out in twenty minutes, it took Jason nearly two hours to escape Songa's clutches, after she ran a full body scan looking for cancerous cells and then doing a test on the endolimbs and the nerves connected to them that she'd wanted to do last month. That annoyed him a little bit, since he'd had no problems with the endolimbs at all since they were grafted onto his arms three years ago. He was fully used to them now, and in a way, he preferred them, because he found them very useful for those times when he needed an inhumanly strong grip.

_No degradation of the nerve sheaths at the connection point,_ she noted via sending, mainly to the two other doctors in the room. _No inflammation in the flesh in contact with the endolimb._

_ There never was, silly woman,_ he protested.

_It can show up over time, dear, even years after an endolimb is implanted,_ she answered absently. _That's why you need periodic scans of your arms._

_ Oh._

_ I don't do this for fun, dear, much as you think I enjoy making you sit there. Well I do, but not for this, this is a boring test,_ she amended with a sly smile at him. _I much prefer the tests where I get to stick needles in you._

_God, you doctors are all sadists,_ he accused.

_Brave thoughts to share when you're sitting in the annex, Jason,_ Songa winked.

_Not as brave as telling me to my face that you enjoy sticking needles in me._

_ We all have to have a hobby, dear,_ she teased.

The second snag of the day came when he got back to work, and found a handpanel sitting on his desk. It was a crypto panel from Miaari's office, and that meant it held the kind of report that would only be hand delivered by a courier on a dedicated handpanel. He sat down at his desk and started working his way through it. It was a report mainly about the Kimdori effort to crack the security surrounding Ward Six in the HQ of the Medical Service on Draconis, and to put it briefly, those efforts had been stymied. Zaa had sent the report to him, and he could tell her writing and could tell that she was _extremely _frustrated. And that was a nearly unknown sensation for a Kimdori of her skill and ability.

The report described a level of security that Zaa had never encountered before, almost as if it was specifically designed to target the Kimdori. The biometric locks were only the first layer of the defenses around a ward in the hospital known only as Ward Six, which was mostly underground and was more secure than the freakin' IBI. The entire ward was under constant high-sensitivity scan that searched for _any_ DNA that was not allowed within the ward. Those allowed into it had to go through extravagant cleansing procedures to enter the ward, which removed all foreign DNA from both on and in their bodies. They went to the extreme of killing every single microbe and virus inside the bodies of those allowed into the ward, which wasn't exactly healthy because Faey, like Terrans, relied on certain probiotic organisms primarily within their digestive tract to help keep them at optimal health. That insane level of thoroughness made it virtually impossible for any Kimdori to get into the ward, and even if they did, there were multiple other intrusion detection systems inside the ward. Attempts to get anyone or anything into the Ward had met with failure, from Kimdori infiltrators to special bionoids all the way to spiders.

The bionoids Rook developed for the attempt to get into the ward creeped Jason out and made him almost feel like old Terran movies were coming to life. To get around the mechanical detection systems, they had taken the specs for a Benga infiltrator bionoid, which held SCM systems in it that defeated sensors, and Rook grew _living tissue_ over the endoskeleton. That was right out of the fuckin' _Terminator_ movie, and the movie might have been where he got the idea for it. They'd managed to get a DNA sample of one of the doctors that had access to Ward Six, then used that to grow living tissue around the bionoid to create the most lifelike bionoid ever built, because it had living components. They'd gone to the extreme with it, giving it the doctor's retinal pattern and fingerprints on top of having identical DNA. Three days ago, they sent that bionoid into the Medical Annex to try to gain access to Ward Six, and it was only in there for a grand total of six minutes before it had to literally dive out a window to escape security forces within the building.

The reason why was simple. The Medical Service was employing dozens and dozens of listeners and mindbenders as an additional layer of security, and the bionoid couldn't hide from a telepath. Listeners with the skill to sense commune were stationed at every access point that allowed access to Ward Six, and every entry into the ward was defended by a mindbender that subjected the person trying to get in to telepathic interrogation. While the SCM units in the bionoid could hide it from the sensors, it couldn't hide the fact that it broadcasted commune as it communicated with its driver. And telepaths with sufficient power and skill could hear commune. They couldn't understand it, but they could hear it.

Attempts to lift information off those able to get into the ward had also met with failure, mainly because everyone able to enter the ward had gone into it six days ago and had not come out since. It was almost as if they feared that Karinne telepaths were lurking within the building and the listeners and mindbenders serving as security in the building were keeping any telepath from even trying to probe anyone that might know anything.

It was almost getting to the point where the only way they were going to find out what was in that Ward was to mount a military expedition to invade the building to take it by force.

All of this was pissing Zaa off like she'd never been pissed off before. Zaa was not used to failing at anything, and she'd been very nearly rash the last few days because every idea they came up with failed…and every failure caused the Medical Service to stack even more security around Ward Six. The Medical Service had been in a state of heightened security since the hack of their mainframe.

The one thing they'd managed to figure out was that the Medical Service's lock on the records of the farm workers wasn't part of whatever was going on in Ward Six, or at least they weren't directly connected. When Kevin Ball submitted the authorization to give the Karinnes access to his medical records, the Medical Service complied, sending them. That seemed to be unrelated, but as he'd noted earlier, them trying to get those records had caused them to all but stumble across the existence of this deep secret the Medical Service was hiding, and now they were going to find out what it was.

There was little he could do about that, so he put it aside and got back to work, trying to clear his inbox before going home for the day…which brought him to his third snag of the day. He was summoned to Cybil's facility when an alarm went off, one that only he, Myleena, and Siyhaa would receive, and the three of them spent the rest of the day troubleshooting a problem in the external stacks in Cybi's core chamber. This problem wasn't as bad as the one that ultimately created Rook, but it was a fairly nasty problem in her primary I/O tree that was causing periodic lag spikes in the biogenic network.

"You'd think these things wouldn't go down after just two years," Myleena fumed as she and Jason tested biogenic boards. "I swear, her original fifteen hundred year old components were built better than this."

"This isn't the first issue we've run into since we upgraded Cybi's external systems," Siyhaa told her patiently. "Jason, I think we need to devote some time to do a comprehensive inspection of every stack in here. We may have a bad unit somewhere causing other units to fail."

"That's gonna take us a takir," Myleena complained.

"Better to spend ten days now preventing a problem later that might take a month to fix," Siyhaa replied sagely.

"You know how busy I am, Siyhaa?" Myleena protested. "I can't drop everything and spend ten days chasing down a gremlin in Cybi's I/O tree!"

_"Your concern for me is quite touching, Myli,"_ Cybi said over an external speaker, putting an impressive amount of snark in her voice.

"I'm siding with Siyhaa on this one, Myli," Jason said. "Arrange some time off from Project H, and I'll arrange some time out of the office. Siyhaa, build a team of 3D techs authorized to work on CBIMs and get them ready. We'll come in here and do a hardcore inspection to see if Siyhaa is right."

Myleena gave him a very long, very dirty look.

_[Where are you, babes?]_ Dahnai called over the network.

_[Cybi's facility. We're doing some work,]_ he answered.

_[Well, hurry up and finish, I'll be there in about half an hour,]_ she ordered.

_[I'm not dropping everything and running whenever you snap your fingers, woman,]_ he retorted, only half playing. _[We're hunting down a problem in Cybi's I/O tree that deals with her connection to the network. She's sending lag spikes into the network, and it's jacking with almost everything. This is a little more important than your dinner plans.]_

_ [Huffy,]_ Dahnai returned, both amused and slightly annoyed.

"I found it," Siyhaa announced. "Output routing board 137B-17 in the network processing stack."

"Finally," Myleena breathed. "Burned out or malfunctioning?"

Siyhaa gave her handpanel a long look. "Odd. The spiders damaged it," she noted, looking at them. "I've never seen that before."

"Me either. And maybe that's our gremlin," Jason said. "Cybi, run a level one diagnostic of the entire spider control system."

_"It'll take about half an hour. I've ordered a replacement board from the Shimmer Dome, they should have it ready in about two hours. They don't have any pre-fabbed."_

"I'd be surprised if they did," Jason mused. "That's a specialty board."

"I'll bring up the auxiliary output control stack, you'll have to run on that until we get your primary repaired," Siyhaa said, going over to a manual control unit—a security measure to prevent a CBIM's I/O tree from being attacked by remote—and jacking into it using a datafiber from her interface. "How's that, Cybi?" she asked barely five seconds after doing so.

_"That did it, the lag spikes are gone,"_ she answered. _"Thank you, everyone but Myleena."_

"Bite my ass, Cybi," she shot back, which made Jason laugh.

"If we have two hours, I'm gonna run out and grab something to eat," Jason said. "You two hungry?"

"I could go for something," Myleena replied.

"As could I. I found the most interesting restaurant the other day, they serve a Terran food style called Mexican. It was quite good."

"I had no idea you like spicy food, Hadjha," Jason said. "And I know the best Mexican restaurant in Karsa."

"Well then, let's see if it's better than the restaurant I found last takir."

They managed to get back to Cybi's facility just as the new board was ready, and Jason and Myleena installed it as Siyhaa went over the diagnostic results with Cybi. "There's definitely something there," she reported when they regrouped near Cybi's core crystal, Cybi projecting out a hologram. "There's a signal aberration just at the edge of the tolerance in the datastream being broadcasted to the spiders. I suggest for safety's sake, we completely replace the entire spider maintenance system, including the spider units themselves. They may have been corrupted by the errant datastream."

"I agree," Myleena nodded as they studied a hologram showing the results. "That won't be that hard, we can knock it out in a couple of days. The most time consuming part will be Cybi gathering up the spiders. It'll take some of them days to get to the container."

"We're not trashing them, we'll send them back to the Shimmer Dome and have them check them. If they check out, we'll add them back to the tier one pool. Those kinds of spiders are too expensive to just trash."

"We need to go over them anyway, it may not be the control unit. The datastream fluctuations may be right on the borderline of tolerance, but it shouldn't be jacking the spiders, we designed them better than that. There might be a flaw in the production run of spiders we put in here, it just took it this long to manifest."

"That's always possible. We'd better have the other spiders in that run tested," Jason nodded.

"We should replace them with brand new spiders, just in case," Siyhaa suggested, "not recycled ones."

"Yeah, Cybi, put in the order for the control system and a new full production run of tier one spiders."

_"I've sent the orders. ETA for them to fill the order is five days. I think I can live without spiders for five days."_

"True, but I want to install an external sensor to monitor your systems while you are without spiders," Siyhaa told her. "One not connected to your primary system would be safest."

_"If you think it best, Hadjha,"_ Cybi demurred.

The last event of the day happened after he went to bed, which was over at the Summer Palace. Dahnai was over for her takir of residence on Karis, and as was customary, she claimed Jason for her own while Kellin spent the night with Jyslin. Just before midnight, he was woken up by the KES. It was Myra, who, after he merged to a construct in the house's mainframe that resembled his work office here on the island, appeared as a flat hologram floating just past his desk within the construct. "I thought you were with Dahnai," she noted, looking around.

"I am, this is a construct. No way am I letting you see into Dahnai's bedroom," he replied, which made her grin. Myra was on the bridge of a KES vessel, which was currently located in galaxy C7A-14, which was nearly 19 days away from Karis in mode three. It was 7 clusters away, nearly as far as the nearest galaxy in the opposing string in the Greater Evanis formation.

"Spoilsport," she grinned.

"Why are you waking me up, Myra?" he asked pointedly.

"This is why," she said, and the screen split to show either a live image or a picture of something he'd never seen before…at least live. He'd seen something akin to it in a movie, a very, very old movie called _The Last Starfighter_. It was a wall of evenly spaced artificial devices that stretched beyond visual range in all four directions, like The Frontier from that old movie. Each device looked to be about the size of a corvette, and they were evenly spaced 3,270 kathra apart. On the other side of them was an elliptical globular galaxy about a quarter of the size of the Milky Way, shaped roughly like a disc

"Are they mines or sensor nodes?"

"We don't know, we can't scan them," she replied. "We're not even sure what metal makes up the outer hull. So, the obvious reason why I called is because I'm not about to cross that, that, whatever it is without your approval."

"Don't cross it," he ordered. "Have you found out how far it goes?"

"I've sent sixteen probes out, jumping hyperspace along the border and dropping at regular intervals to do a visual, and so far, they haven't found an edge in any direction. I'm starting to think that they may circumnavigate the rim of this entire arc of the galaxy. So far, we've counted 17 decatillion of them, and that number keeps going up as the probes keep going."

"Damn. Whoever made them must be insanely advanced. Probably way more advanced than we are. But the question I have is, what would make them erect a barrier of some kind that looks like it's trying to enclose an entire _galaxy_?"

"No idea, but what I can tell you is that we can't scan the devices, or _past_ them. So we've pulled a page from the Kimdori playbook an we're using light magnification to visually survey stars within the galaxy. We'll be seeing them as they were hundreds or even thousands of years ago, but if whoever's in there could make _that_, then odds are we'll see signs of an advanced civilization even looking that far back."

He regarded the devices. It was either a sensor blind or a minefield—or both—and it was clearly built by someone with exceptionally advanced technology. And it looked like it protected a vast, vast area at the galaxy's rim…and might even conceivably enclose the _entire_ galaxy. He doubted that it did, the amount of time and resources it would take to do something like that would truly be mind-boggling. To enclose the entire galaxy, they'd need so many of them that counting would damn near require imaginary numbers.

But one thing was for certain. "Myra," he said seriously. "Recall the probes, and pull the ship back into flat space while you wait for them to return. I want you a minimum of five light years from that wall. Once you recover the probes, turn around and leave that galactic cluster," he ordered. "I don't want any part of a civilization that could do something like _that_, and I sure as hell don't want anything to do with whoever might have motivated them to build it. If that was built to keep someone out, I don't want to find out who it is or why they went to such lengths to keep them out. Mark clusters C6K, C7A, and C7B off limits for exploration, and I mean go so far as to ban travel within a full day of travel in mode three around those clusters. If you want to explore C14 and the other clusters directly behind those three, you go _around_ that area."

"I'll put Cyrsi on plotting out the restricted area," she nodded, then looked to the side. "Captain Sa'Kra, recall all probes and pull us back away from the devices by five light years. Once we're deeper out in flat space, prepare a jump back to our forward outpost at C5D in mode three."

"Aye, Myra," he heard Sa'Kra respond. She was one of their most experienced KES captains, an Urumi. She had to be in order to be assigned to a Vanguard class scout ship. "Helm course 0 mark 1, speed 20, get us five light years from the formation. Hold at that position and begin plotting a course back to C5D-6 in mode three."

"Aye, Captain, answering course 007 mark 347, mode one, speed twenty."

"Captain, I have a visual on something moving this way," someone else called. "Putting it on the main viewer." Jason looked at the other side of the split screen, and he saw what looked like a very small ship approaching at sublight speed from the other side of the plane formed by the devices. It was about the size of a KMS frigate, and like a frigate, it was long and sleek, having the look of a warship.

"That tears it, I'm merging to a bionoid so I can keep track of things," Jason said. "Cyrsi, send me the ID code of a bionoid aboard that ship."

_"Sending it now."_

"Should we back off?" Myra asked him.

"Yes," he answered. "They may see us being this close to their border to be a hostile act, so back off five light years."

"You heard the Grand Duke, navigator," Myra said, turning and looking at him. He was a Terran male, about thirty or so from the looks of him."

By the time he was merged to one of the generic crew bionoids and was on the bridge, they were at their new position five light years away from the border. The ship that had been approaching at sublight, however, reappeared on visual almost as soon as they came out of mode one, about 100,000 kathra away, and it resumed a sublight intercept course. They couldn't scan the ship, since it looked to be made of the same metal as the units, and it clearly had FTL or jump capability given it got out here so fast. They were letting them see them coming, Jason surmised, which he saw as a peaceful act.

"They're letting us see them coming," Myra said, mirroring his thoughts. "I think they want to parley."

"Any signs of us being hailed on any monitored comm band?" Jason asked Sa'Kra, who was petite for an Urumi, only looming over him, with a smaller crest that betrayed her youth. The older the female, the larger the crest. She was a damn good captain despite her youth, however.

"No indication, your Grace," she answered, leaning over the shoulder of one of the six comm officers on the bridge. "No organized signals on EM, tachyon, modulated light, hyperspace pulse, or gravband. "Should we jump out?"

"Let's give them a chance," Jason said, to which Myra nodded in agreement. "But be ready to jump out at a second's notice."

"Aye, your Grace, keeping the drive in standby and the coordinates locked in," navigator said. "Should I turn the ship?"

"Yes, then hold position," Jason nodded. "Sa'Kra, blink the running lights so they know we see them."

"Aye, your Grace."

When they got within 70 kathra, the ship slowed to a stop, and both Myra and Sa'Kra gasped. "They're talented!" Myra said, putting a finger to her temple. "Can you hear them, Sa'Kra?'

"Aye, Myra," she answered. Sa'Kra, like Sk'Vrae, was a telepath.

"What are they saying?" Jason asked.

"They're warning us not to cross the border. Now they're asking us who we are," she answered. "How honest should I be?"

"Fairly," he replied. "Don't reveal where we're from, but admit that we have intergalactic capability. I think they've figured that out by now. Tell them we're exploring the galactic clusters near our home. And tell them that we pulled back to this position to make sure we stayed well away from their territory."

Since Jason was in a bionoid, he wasn't privy to what Sa'Kra and Myra were hearing…as was everyone else on the bridge, from the look of it. The telepath in the other ship must be sending so that non-talented minds could hear him. Sa'Kra let Myra do the talking, and she leaned down and spoke in Jason's ear. "They call themselves the Allu," she relayed. "They refuse entry into their galaxy. Myra assures them we have no desire to trespass. She asks why they built such a thing, asking if it is safe to explore the other galaxies in this cluster. The Allu answer that it is not," she warned. "There is a highly hostile race that dominates the largest galaxy in this cluster that has intergalactic capability, their perimeter was built ages ago by a coalition of races within the galaxy to prevent them from attacking. They say that all civilizations in the galaxies surrounding the hub galaxy in this cluster have faced attack from the enemy. The Allu say the hostile race are religious zealots that believe that all other forms of intelligent life are abominations that must be destroyed. The Allu say that their galaxy unified into a single government to answer that threat, long ago. The entire galaxy is a single empire."

Now _that_ was interesting. That almost sounded like how the Confederation came to be, created to deal with the Consortium.

"They ask from where we come. Myra is being evasive, only saying that we traveled a great distance over a very long time, that we come from another galactic cluster after only recently developing intergalactic capability. The Allu are not pressing the point. They warn not to enter the other galaxies, we will be attacked by either the hostile race or other empires that will think we are the hostile race, and it would be safest for us to go back from where we came. Myra tells them that we are marking this entire cluster as prohibited, so we will not bother them again, nor risk confrontation with the hostile race in the hub galaxy. They say that would be wise. They ask if we would be interested in establishing diplomatic ties. Myra answers that she can't make that decision, that she will have to inform her superiors when she gets back and they will have to decide. She asks for a procedure to contact the Allu should her superiors accept. The Allu answer to leave a communication device at our original coordinates by the border, that they will detect the device and investigate. They offer to meet face to face before we leave so we can trade languages to be able to talk over a comm device, should we decide to open channels."

"Your call, Myra," Jason told her. "If you think it's safe, we'll do it."

"They're offering to board our ship, so I'd say it's safe enough," she replied.

"Then tell them we're good with it."

Jason, Myra, and Sa'Kar moved down to the landing bay, where, moments after they arrived, a single very small shuttlecraft landed. It looked barely the size of a compact car, and a single being exited it from the front; the entire front of the craft opened like a hatch. The Allu was very tall, a touch over six shakra, which put it a head over Myra. It was a canoid species, with dark gray fur and a muzzle and triangular ears atop its head, but Jason couldn't tell if it was male or female. Like many mammal species, if it was female, it didn't have pronounced breasts, and it was wearing a plain brown jumpsuit of sorts as a uniform, which hid its genitals. It stepped up and offered a clawed hand, and Sa'Kar advanced and took it. Moments later, a new language was uploaded into the bionoid's memory, known as Galactic Common, the trade language all species used in their galaxy.

"I find it most curious that you have a telepathic robot and a Ulala on your crew," the Allu said aloud, looking at Jason and Myra.

"My species is called Faey, your Excellency," Myra told him easily. "And this robot is here for our protection, since it can't be telepathically dominated."

"You exactly resemble a race known as the Ulala in my galaxy," he told Myra. "Your skin color is different, but everything else in the same. You're even telepathic, like they are."

Jason and Myra exchanged surprised looks. "This isn't the first time we've encountered a race that closely resembled us, your Excellency," Myra told him. "We have a theory that species that evolved on planets with extremely similar conditions will have many similar traits, and might even look similar to one another. Your people resemble a race from our galaxy known as the Hrathari," she told him. "Just taller."

"Interesting," he said, staring at Jason's bionoid. "And the robot? I see you've developed telepathic resonance technology. Is it being controlled by your ship's computer?"

"It's being controlled by a security expert elsewhere on the ship, just in case this meeting was to turn violent," Myra told him. "But it's clearly no longer needed, so I'll send it away."

Jason took the initiative to delink from the bionoid and merge directly to the ship's computer, then he brought up the feeds for the sensors in the landing bay to continue listening. He watched as the bionoid, now controlled by the ship's computer, walked towards the nearest hatch.

"If I might ask, what is telepathic resonance technology?" Myra asked as the bionoid left the landing bay.

"Machines that can use telepathy. That robot is an example of it," he said, pointing at the bionoid. "I can hear it using a type of telepathy I've never encountered before."

"Now that's most interesting, your Excellency. You're the first civilization we've encountered that has technology similar to ours," Myra told him.

"I'm surprised you don't have a connection to your home base using telepathic comm," he said. "Any race that's developed resonance tech should have thought of it."

"Oh, we have, but we don't have a relay beacon out this far," she replied, twisting the truth a little bit. "We have to get in range of a beacon to communicate with HQ. We don't set those beacons out in unexplored and unsecure space, to prevent others from capturing them and stealing their technology."

After a few more minutes of them politely stonewalling the Allu, he got back in his shuttle and returned to his ship. They waited for him to safely dock with his ship, then Sa'Kra had the ship enter mode three, getting them out of the cluster.

"Ulala," Jason said distantly. "He said you look just like the Ulala, and they're telepathic. The way he said it, I think he meant they were _all_ telepathic. Could it be a case of Gora's Law, or are the Ulala another splinter branch of the Faey race?" he asked, looking at Myra.

"All the way out _here_?" Myra protested.

"If the Dreamers could get to Andromeda, who's saying that the Ulala couldn't have made it all the way here?" he countered calmly. "We may be the first civilization that we know of that has intergalactic capability, but I doubt we were the first ever. And over the last two years, I'm convinced that we're not even _close_ to being the first. I mean, we just left a galaxy that's most likely entirely surrounded by an artificial mine system. An entire _galaxy_," he stressed. "I can't even imagine how long that took to build, and how much resources it required to do it. I'm sure Cyrsi would have to work a while to do the math," he mused. "I'd almost bet that they have engines capable of intergalactic travel, because we know for sure that this hostile race they're afraid of _does_. How else would they get to their galaxy to attack?"

"That's a prudent thought, your Grace. Sensors, keep an eye behind us, look for any potential followers," Sa'Kra ordered, looking over at her sensor officer.

"Aye, Captain," the Faey at the post answered.

"Navigator, prepare several possible course changes so we're not leading any followers back to C5D."

"Aye sir."

"So, Jayce, are we opening channels with them?" Myra asked.

"Maybe. We'll have to do some research and I need to talk to the usual experts before I make a decision like that."

"Bringing in stealth probes?"

He nodded. "Comm one, call back to C5D and have them prepare a frigate carrying stealth probes," he called, looking over at the comm bank. "Tell them that they are not to enter the cluster. They'll stop two days from the cluster and launch the probes from there."

"Aye, your Grace."

"It'll take them a while to get anything out this far, but I want more information about this cluster before I do anything. Cyrsi."

_"Yes, Jason?"_

"Tell Myri to bring in a full tactical task force led by a command ship and picket them at the forward research outpost at C5D-6. Just in case."

_"I'll relay the order."_

"A task force?"

"I'm not taking any chances, we have six thousand people on that research station," he answered. The research station was one of the KES' super-ships, which had been converted to be used as a forward research station. They had 112 of them in service of the 250 they had planned, and all of them were currently deployed. The super-ship was armed—heavily armed at that—including carrying GRAF cannons, but they weren't considered tactical assets. The armament on a KES super-ship was primarily defensive, outside of the GRAF cannons. If there was a chance it may come under attack, Jason wanted warships in the vicinity to do it. "I'm going to assume that this race of zealots have intergalactic capability until I'm proven wrong. And besides, our girls could use the experience of a deployment."

"The task force will reach C5D a full day before we do," Sa'Kra noted, to which Jason nodded.

"If we're bringing someone back with us, we'll have a full tactical task force there to greet them," he grunted. "Cyrsi, do the Kimdori have any ships in this area?" he asked, looking over at the camera pod she was using."

_"Not any that could get here faster than a ship using the Stargate at C4J-32,"_ she answered.

"Meh. Ask Denmother if she can send a scout ship to C5D, so we have some Kimdori explorers and infiltrators on site if they're needed. Besides, I think she'll be fascinated by this and will want to investigate herself."

There wasn't much more he could do, so he delinked so he could go back to bed…and once again, he returned to awareness with Dahnai propped upon him, a hand under her chin as the other played with his hair. _[So, you _do _have Stargates to other galactic clusters.]  
[I've told you not to do that, woman,]_ he retorted shortly, a tiny bit of honest anger bleeding into his thought.

_[You should know better than to merge to something when you're in bed with me, baby. I can hear everything, especially now that I can commune,]_ she answered shamelessly. _[And it's not that big of a secret. It's only common sense for you to set Stargates so your ships don't have to travel for days to get there. And I will admit one thing. All your talk talk talk about being cautious and being careful, well, you justified every bit of it. If there's an empire out there that can build a shield around an _entire galaxy_, there's no telling what else they can do. And we should be very careful.]_

He gave her a long, unfriendly look, and she answered it by giving him a quirky grin, then leaning down and kissing him playfully on the tip of his nose.

_Maista, 28 Shiaa , 4408, Faey Orthodox Calendar_

_ Thursday, 2 August 2022 Terran Standard Calendar_

_ Maista, 28 Shiaa, year 1333 of the 97__th__ Generation, Karinne Historical Reference Calendar_

_Foxwood East, Karsa, Karis _

He knew that this day was coming, and he still wasn't sure if he was ready for it.

Standing by the deck table, he was leaning against the railing in nothing but a pair of shorts and looking down at his son Zachary, who had a nervous but very determined look on his face. Zach had asked to talk to him about something _important_, and Jason had a feeling that he knew what this was about. And the look on Zach's face hinted very strongly that he was right.

It was quite a lovely day, with a gentle breeze caressing the beach that carried the heady aroma of _oye_ flowers, and the occasional petal drifted down from the canopy above. Jason's tree was flowering, and from the looks of it, it was going to fruit again very soon. Late afternoon sunlight filtered through the edge of the canopy as the sun neared the horizon, the shade dancing and shifting as the branches above swayed in the sea breeze. It was an idyllic end to a fairly good day for Jason, but he had the feeling that it was about to get put on its ear.

Zach took a deep breath, then looked up at him. _[Dad…I think I want to marry Dara,]_ he declared, though his thought was much more certain than the words he communed, given he was framing.

_[Marriage is not something you _think_ you want to do, son,]_ he answered. _[It's for _life_, so you'd better be damn sure that it's what you want before you even entertain the idea of pursuing it. You won't be able to just make Dara go home if she starts to annoy you. She'll be living with you, every minute of every day for the rest of your life. That is a commitment, and you'd better be sure you're ready for it.]_

_ [I am. I mean, I know what marriage is, I've talked to Ranny about it. And it's what I want. When Dara's not here, she's all I can think about. I miss her all the time when she's back on Tamiri. Not even talking to her over her interface is enough, because it's just her voice, it's not _her_.]_

_ [So, you thought about this before asking me.]_

_ [For a while,]_ he nodded. _[Dara moving here is gonna be hard for everyone, because she has to get used to the strip, and we have to make sure that she'll keep our secrets. If I can even get her to marry me,]_ he communed, worry worming into his thought. _[I mean, I know she loves me, but marriage is a big step. And then there's her mom. She might not like Dara leaving her house and coming here. But I can't wait much longer, Dad. Dara's almost fifteen, and I know what that means in the _siann_. She should have already been betrothed by now, but she's not. If I don't get her betrothal, Aunt Yila might betroth her to another boy.]_

_ [Son, sometimes you are oblivious,]_ Jason told him honestly. _[Yila has been all but hitting you over the head with the idea that Dara is available for betrothal since the day you met Dara. She hasn't betrothed her to another boy because she was waiting for you to ask. She's been fishing for a betrothal from you for _years_.]_

_ [Really?]_

_ [Yes, really,]_ he answered, a tiny bit caustically. _[But despite that, I made you and the other kids a promise, and I'll keep it. If you want to marry Dara, if you really want it, then I'll do what I can to make it happen. I promised you that you could marry whoever you wanted, and if you want Dara, then you get Dara. _But_,]_ he stressed, _[I'm not the one you have to convince. Your mother has to approve, especially since Dara will be moving into _your_ house. You convince Ilia to approve of the betrothal, and I'll talk to Yila about it.]_

_ [I already talked to Mom. She said I had to convince you.]_

Jason almost had to chuckle. _[Is that so? Hold on a second.]_ He reached up into the network and located Ilia, who was at work up in Kosigi. _[Ilia, Zach asked.]_

_ [He did? Are you okay with it?]_

_ [Only if you are.]_

_ [I'm alright with it, at least if Miaari clears Dara to move to Karis. Just because she's marrying my son doesn't mean she gets to bypass screening.]_

_ [It kinda does, but—]_

_ [No. If she can't pass the screening, then she's not worthy of him or worthy of being a Karinne,]_ Ilia interrupted adamantly. _[She goes through the same screening as any other applicant. She has to _prove_ she belongs here, Jason. If she refuses, or fails, or Yila tries to interfere, then we know that we can't trust her. And I will not let my son marry a girl I can't trust.]_

_ [That…well, alright. I think it just became a deal-breaker, but if that's your position, I'll honor it.]_

_ [You think she won't pass? And you were going to bring her here anyway?]_

_ [I think she may not pass _now_, but after we had some time to work on her, we could bring her around. The way we did Shya. I was willing to give her the chance, but if you say she has to pass screening, then that's that. He's your son too.]_

_ [Thank you for that.]_

"Oh boy," Jason breathed aloud, shaking his head. "Ilia will allow it, son, but she has one hell of a condition. She said Dara has to pass the screening the Kimdori give to all applicants to the house before she'll give her blessing," he told him.

"She can pass it, I know she can," he said aloud, his voice absolutely certain. "Dara always talks about how she'd love to live here, but she can't just leave her mom because she's a noble."

"So you agree to your mother's condition? If Dara fails the screening, you won't argue about it?"

"I won't," he said. "Because I believe in her. I know she'll pass."

"Part of being the Grand Duke is planning for the impossible, Zach. So you'd better be ready to accept it if Dara fails," he warned. "And I want to hear you say it. Will you accept that you can't marry Dara if she fails the screening?"

He gave Jason a long look, then sighed and nodded. "I won't like it, but I won't argue about it," he answered.

"Alright then." _[Miaari.]_

_ [What is it, cousin?]_

_ [Zach just asked me to betroth him to Dara. Ilia won't bless the marriage unless Dara passes the applicant screening. So I wanted to give you a head's up about it. I'll schedule the time for Dara to be screened. But I want _you_ to do it. And I want you to be completely fair. Use the same screening protocols you use for any other applicant, and allow her to pass or fail on her own. No bias.]_

_ [I can do that, cousin. Just tell me when she'll be here, and I'll arrange my schedule around her screening.]_

_ [I haven't gotten to that part yet. I'll let you know.]_

_ [I'll be listening for you.]_

He again reached up into the network, this time casting out into the galactic biogenic network, searching for Yila's interface. It pinged on Terra, and he queried her. _[Yila.]_

_ [Hey Jason. What's going on?]_

_ [Zach has asked me to secure Dara's betrothal,]_ he told her, almost ceremonially.

_[Oh really now?]_ she replied, nearly coquettishly, but he could sense wild elation behind her thought, something so powerful that it was even bleeding through her moleculartronic interface. The only reason he picked it up was because she was wearing a simsense-capable interface. _[And I take it you'd like to meet to discuss it?]_

_ [Not quite yet. Ilia will only bless it if Dara passes the screening process we use to induct new members into the house. If Dara fails that screening, then that's that. So I need to arrange to have you bring her to Karis so she can be screened. What happens after that will depend entirely on if she passes.]_

_ [You're Zach's father,]_ she protested. _[And you didn't screen Shya.]_

_ [Dara will be living under Ilia's roof, and Ilia makes the rules when it comes to her son,]_ he returned.

_[You're being entirely unfair. If Dara fails the screening, she'll be totally crushed.]_

_ [Life isn't fair,]_ he told her. _[Ilia won't bring Dara into her house unless she can trust her, and the screening will tell her if she can.]_

There was a long silence. _[When do you want us there?]_

_ [Whenever is most convenient for you,]_ he answered.

_[How long will it take?]_

_ [Given Miaari is the one that will be conducting it, maybe an hour. She can bring in one of our best screening telepaths.]_

_ [Then we'll be over as soon as I finish my meeting here. Dara gets out of school in an hour. I'll have Dara sent over from Tamiri and I'll meet you there when I get done.]_

_ [Fair enough,]_ he answered. He ended his connection to Yila and got back in touch with Miaari. _[Dara will be on the way over in a little over an hour. Yila said she'd be along when she finishes her meeting.]_

_ [I take it I don't give Yila the chance to talk to her?]_

_ [No. Begin the screening the minute Dara arrives. I'll have her shuttle sent to the White House instead of here.]_

_ [The proper choice,]_ she replied approvingly. _[That way Yila has no chance to try to contaminate the outcome.]_

He looked down at Zach. _[It's all set up. Dara will be screened when she gets out of school and gets over here, in about two hours. We'll have to wait for the result before we can take the next step, one way or the other.]_

_ [Okay. Thanks, Dad,]_ he communed with sincere gratitude in his thought. _[Now I spend the longest two hours of my life.]_

Jason had to chuckle. _[Welcome to growing up, son. It's best to get yourself involved in something, you'll find it passes the time.]_ He looked him up and down. _[And I think I know exactly what that should be. I'd say that you're old enough for some _real_ responsibility, son.] Aya,_ he called, sending openly.

_Yes, Jason?_

_ Effective immediately, Zach is in the rigger training program,_ he called, which made Zach gasp and sit up quickly. _He's ready._

_ I'll schedule the training sessions and send his vidlink the simulation programs, and add his biometrics to the strip exomechs so he can merge to them. Zach, come to the armory as soon as you can, you have to be here to be added to the access list._

_ Aw, no fair!_ Shya protested. _I want to do it too!_

_ Yeah, why does Zach get to do rigger training but not me?_ Kyri added in.

_ Prove you're mature enough to handle the responsibility of having control of a machine that costs hundreds of thousands of credits and can kill people if you misuse it, and you will. Zach did._

Zach jumped up and gave Jason a crushing hug. _[Thanks Dad!]_

_ [Don't thank me for something you did yourself,]_ he chided lightly. _[Now, you can spend your time waiting over at the armory, where one of the guards will give you an introductory tour to the training program and tell you what it entails, at least after you get added to the access list for the mecha. Just be ready to work, son, rigger training is demanding.]_

_ [I'll make you proud, Dad.]_

_ [You already have,]_ he smiled, then turned him around and swatted him lightly on the rump. _[I'll let you know when we know something.]_

_ [Okay.] Aya, I'm coming over to the armory right now._

_ I'll meet you there._

He'd been meaning to do that for a couple of takirs. Zach and Rann were the elder children ready for rigger training, but Rann came with the baggage of Shya. Jason knew better than to put Rann into the program and not Shya, it would cause some real friction between them. So until Shya was ready, Rann was being held out of the program. And this way, putting Zach into the program before he was betrothed to Dara—if she passed the screening—Dara couldn't bitch about being left out too much. Then again, Dara wouldn't really care. She was devoted to her bachi, and she'd see having to do rigger training as an intolerable distraction.

Jason got involved in paperwork up in his home office while they waited, mainly so he could stay out of it. He didn't want any distractions for either Miaari or Dara. So, he was a bit surprised when Miaari called him over the network, while he was plowing through the numbers for next fiscal year's budget that Kumi had sent him. _[We're done, Jason. Dara is on her way to the strip now.]_

_ [The verdict?]_

_ [She passed. She's all but pair-bonded to Zach already, and she won't do anything that might risk that relationship. The biggest thing she's worried about is that living on Karis may make it harder for her to get onto a pro team once she's old enough to sign on.]_

_ [I think we can work around that,]_ Jason communed dryly, which made her chuckle. _[Guess I should tell Yila.]_

_ [You can tell her yourself in about five minutes. She's on her way down to the strip now.]_

_ [Figured. Bring Dara over, will you?]_

_ [She's already on her way, one of White House guards is bringing her.]_

He met Yila on the landing pad, and she was dressed for negotiation…which meant she was wearing almost nothing. She had on knee boots and a pair of scarves draped over one shoulder and crossing her torso that only covered her left breast, and that was it. _Is Dara here? Is she still being screened? What news?_ she pressed as she came down the steps from her luxury dropship.

_She'll be here in a few minutes. She completed the screening interview._

_ And?_

_ And we need to talk about an official contract._

Yila's blue face lit up as bright as the Karis sun…which amused Jason. Little did she realize that if Dara passed screening, it meant she wasn't going to give her mother any secret information. She _would not_ risk her marriage with Zach. _Where's Zach? He should be here for this._

_ He's over at the armory. He started his exomech training today,_ Jason answered. _Zach, come to my office,_ Jason called, increasing his power enough to be heard from the armory.

_In a minute, Dad._

_ Have you told him yet?_

_ Not yet. I wanted to let Dara do that._

Dara got to his office first—Aya held Zach up at the armory for some reason—and when Zach came into the office, she got up and crushed him with a fierce hug. _I can't believe it, Zach! We're gonna get married!_

_ You passed? You PASSED!_ Zach thundered, unleashing his full power as a telepath, which was quite impressive. No doubt people 40 kathra away heard that declaration, and it made Yila wince a bit.

"Now that that's out of the way," Jason said aloud, rather dryly, as Zach let Dara pull him to the empty chair in front of his desk. Zach sat down and pulled Dara into his lap. "Zach has asked me to secure a betrothal to your daughter, Yila," he said officially. "Are you going to fight about it and piss me off, try to negotiate and infuriate your daughter, or just give over on it and hand it over without you leaving this office missing your ears?"

She had to laugh. "As long as you allow her to keep her Duchess title, I have no need to negotiate, Jason. I want this as much as Dara does. So let's draw up the contract and sign it. As soon as Dahnai gives official consent, we'll start organizing Dara's move to Karis. Is she still here?"

"No, she went back to Dracora three days ago. We'll have to take the contract over there and have her finalize it."

"Well then, I hope you have some parchment handy."

As Zach and Dara watched in gleeful anticipation, Jason and Yila drew up the official betrothal agreement between them. Dara would move from the House of Trefani to the House of Karinne. She would retain her title and rank of Duchess (which wasn't giving her anything, all the spouses of his children would hold that rank), and she and Zach would be married on Zach's 15th birthday, since he was the younger of them by two months. As was an ancient tradition in the _siann_, the contract was written on parchment, not paper, and even the ink and pen used were special. They used something akin to a fountain pen for these kinds of written contracts. Betrothals were one of the most ancient customs of the _siann_, so when it came to them, they adhered to some of their oldest traditions, which went all the way back to the Faey's Iron Age.

After the contract was written and signed by both Jason and Yila, it became a road trip. The four of them were herded into a destroyer and ferried over to Draconis, where it was just before noon, and they changed into formal robes and crashed the palace while Dahnai was holding court. Because of that, the entire _siann_ found out quickly what was going on, mainly because Yila rather obnoxiously asked Dahnai's consent to the betrothal right there in the throne room in front of the _siann_. She wanted to rub the others' faces in the fact that she'd gotten her daughter married off to a Karinne.

Dahnai gave them a very long look as she took the contract from a guard that brought it to her, then she spent a _long_ time reading it. But after she did so, she looked much less suspicious. "Duchess Dara Trefani, the terms of this contract require you to leave your house to join the House of Karinne, which is customary for the boy to do. So I must ask, do you consent to leaving your house to join the House of Karinne?" she asked, looking at Dara.

"I do so consent," she answered immediately.

"Very well, the throne gives its blessing to this betrothal," she declared, and an aide brought her a pen and a board so he could sign the contract herself. She did so with a flourish, then handed it back to the aide, who blew on the ink to dry it "The wedding will take place on the 15th birthday of Zachary Karinne, being the younger of the two. Congratulations, you two. May you have a long and happy life together."

And that was that. Zach and Dara were betrothed, and in about seven months, they were going to be married. And that was going to put a bit of a pinch on things, since Rann and Shya would be having their state wedding ceremony, the "official" wedding despite the fact that they were already legally married, just 16 days before them. Shya and Zach's birthdays were only 16 days apart. But now would come the ugly part of it, and that was Dara and Zach figuring out how they were going to move into his room, given Dara had tons of stuff and Zach's room wasn't all that big. And then there was Dara living under Ilia's roof, who was far more strict than Yila was.

Jason had the feeling that things weren't going to be quite so rosy in the short term, but he was also sure that things would settle down once Dara moved in and got used to her new normal.

He needed to discuss a little remodeling of her house with Ilia. Zach's room really was too small for both of them. Red Horn could build a modest extension on the side that could house a small apartment for Zach and Dara, give them a little more space and some storage that didn't eat into Ilia's closets. He'd put Rann and Shya into an apartment within the house once they got older, and Zach really deserved the same.

They'd figure it out. They always did.

_Maista, 2 Hiraa , 4408, Faey Orthodox Calendar_

_ Sunday, 12 August 2022 Terran Standard Calendar_

_ Maista, 2 Hiraa, year 1333 of the 97__th__ Generation, Karinne Historical Reference Calendar_

_Training Range 6 ("The Gauntlet"), Joint Base Lamba, Karga, Karis _

He was getting the hang of this.

Well, it was more precise to say that he was getting used to the rather finicky targeting system in a Cheetah. It was much more sensitive than in any other mecha, relied much more on the pilot's ability to aim without using a physical movement, which tested a rigger's ability to control a physical object that wasn't part of his own body, like learning how to control a tail or an extra pair of arms. So far he'd not missed a single target as he ran the Gauntlet, which was a training range used for Cheetahs to test the pilot's ability to aim at targets while moving at high speed or performing evasive maneuvers or parkour. There were segments of the course where he ran at a flat sprint and had to shoot down targets, there were times when he had to avoid obstacles while shooting at targets, and times when he had to jump onto platforms and fire on targets, both on the platforms and in midair between them. He had to use specific weapons for each target based on its color, which tested his ability to manage multiple weapon systems in a fast-reaction situation.

He was nearly through the Cheetah's certification course, and he'd be taking his certification exam next takir, a full two sections ahead of everyone else. He was the only Storm Rider up to this part of the training, and he was almost done with it. The only section of the course he had left after this one was training on the unique pods that were only used with a Cheetah.

The reason why was simple. Despite the others having more time to practice, Jason had adapted to the unique aspects of the Cheetah faster than any of the others, and his experience in merging as a Generation and his ability to split allowed him to quickly adapt to the Cheetah's systems, such as its unique combat targeting system. One reason he was such a good Titan rigger was because he could split to manage its systems, and that skill translated well into a Cheetah.

But he wasn't done with the training. When they finished the certification course, then he and the other Storm Riders would begin training in group tactics and advanced applications, learning how to fight as a team rather than as a collection of riggers. This course was only to earn the privilege to pilot the mecha, there was still a ton of training awaiting them once they gained their rating.

Truth be told, the last month or so, once they'd dropped the hammer on the DFM for embezzling the money meant for the farm survivors, he'd had plenty of time to work on his rating. Outside of the whole Medical Service thing and the distraction of Zach's betrothal to Dara, things had been fairly quiet. The Kimdori still hadn't broken into Ward Six, despite a lack of trying…which had become something of a holy crusade for Zaa now. She was going to crack their security even if she had to level the annex with an antimatter bomb. Since there was nothing he could really do about that but wait, it gave him time to work on rigger training once he finished the paperwork that came with his day job.

Well, there was one thing that was different, and he'd been thinking about it most of the day. Aria's dream had changed.

It was still mostly the same. He and Dahnai were fighting a dragon, but before, when the dream would end before she knew what happened, last night, she had seen more of it. When, in the dream, he and Dahnai hurl themselves at the dragon holding swords to kill it, the dream would end before they struck any blows. But last night, she'd seen the dragon swipe down Dahnai with its paw, sending her plummeting towards the ground, while Jason drove his sword into its upper neck, which made it roar in pain. But the dream ended before she saw if the blow killed the dragon, or if the dragon struck _him_ down in retaliation for the blow.

And that concerned him. It meant that Dahnai was going to fall, or fail.

But they still had no idea what the dream was warning them against. There'd been nothing unusual outside of the usual shenanigans since Aria started having the dream, and there didn't seem to be anything that had changed that would change the outcome of the dream. Dahnai hadn't done anything new or different for like six months, things had been quiet and peaceful in the Imperium, maybe even a little bit boring.

He shot down two more targets and jumped up onto a ledge, then swiped at a target that sprung out in front of him with his forepaw without breaking stride, one coded to be hit by a melee attack. He jumped across the narrow gorge to another platform, shot down four more targets using his pulse cannons, then struck a distant target using his particle cannon. He then shifted to his main rail cannons, which were mounted under the mecha's head and neck, the gunport doors in the lower chest, then slid to a stop so suddenly his rump scraped sparks across the metal platform under him, and dead-centered a target nearly 30 kathra away. He then charged forward again and jumped back down to the ground, and shot down a series of targets along the home stretch. The final target was just in front of the finish line, which bloomed a hole almost dead center as he sprinted by. He slowed to a canter as he turned back for the staging area. _[What's the verdict, controller?]_

_ [No missed shots, course finished with twenty seconds to spare. Well done, K1.]_

_ [Awesome. So is that a pass on the combat skills block?]_

_ [With you passing the close quarters combat section last takir, yes it is. You start the final block of training tomorrow. So study on up on Cheetah pod systems for tomorrow and be ready.]_

He trotted his Cheetah to its bay and rose up out of the cockpit between the shoulder blades, then took off his helmet and took a moment to enjoy his achievement. The Gauntlet was the hardest part of the certification course, most Cheetah pilots said, and he'd finished the block in just nine days. All he had left was weapon pods, learning the various pod systems used with Cheetahs and demonstrating his aptitude using them, and he'd take the final test, which in the spirit of all heavy mecha, was a fairly nasty practical skills test where Jason would have to shoot down a target mecha in a fortified fixed position, that was being actively defended by five heavy mecha. It was the ultimate test of a Cheetah rigger's command of his mecha and how he could use the mecha's speed, agility, and advantages to break the enemy defense and take out the target without being shot down.

That seemed severe, but the fact that Cheetahs had _CMS_ gave them a fighting chance to pull it off. Cheetahs were the only heavy mecha with CMS, and the ability to slip through sensor sweeps undetected would allow the Cheetah to get in close to the target. When Jason took the test, all he had to do was avoid visual contact with the defending mecha and get close to the fixed position holding his target, then find a way to break in and take out the target without getting shot down.

Sadly, the test wasn't administered at night, or that would be almost too easy.

CMS and stealth operations was Block Four of the Cheetah rating course.

Much like the Titan course, few riggers passed the final test in the Cheetah course on the first try. But unlike the Titan course, failing the final test in the Cheetah course did not mean he had to do sections of the course over again, or even the entire course if he failed it spectacularly. He could keep taking the final test every five days until he passed it.

After a quick ten minute debrief and a change out of his armor and into a pair of shorts, tank top, and sandals, Jason, Dera, and Shen were on their way back to Karsa, his guards flying Wolf fighters escorting him and him using his brand new skimmer. KSV, one of the Karinne corps that built civilian skimmers and dropships, had designed a new luxury skimmer, and since he was the Grand Duke, he _was_ entitled to a little luxury from time to time. And he _bought_ it just like anyone else, he saved for nearly six months to buy the skimmer once it was available. What he bought was for him, a down payment of his upcoming midlife crisis, a six passenger skimmer that he would use almost exclusively for flying himself, his wife and _amu_, and maybe a guest or two from one place to another. It wasn't meant for the kids, he had a 12 passenger "family skimmer" for family trips, and if he needed more space than that he could hijack the KMS' personnel transports. This was his brand new work skimmer, which he would primarily be taking to work and back and taking a friend or two out for dates or to catch a baseball game or something.

And in a word, this skimmer was _awesome_. It had everything anyone could ever desire when it came to toys and gadgets, from seat warmers to a near military-grade autopilot system that could fly the skimmer in case he didn't want to fly it himself. It was also a dream to fly, smooth and responsive, with powerful engines capable of speeds that would make a Wolf work to keep up and powerful inertial dampers to make the ride inside the cabin so steady that he could pour a glass of wine while the skimmer was executing a high-G turn. It was even a joy to look at, a long, sleek design that cut through the air and exuded an aire of elegance and sophistication. The thing even had a helper bot in it.

Helper bots were something that just about everyone on Karis except Jason owned. They were household robots that helped with basic chores, the AI in them sophisticated enough to do things like sort and fold laundry, cook basic recipes, run simple errands like going down to the market and picking up a few items, and do daily cleaning chores. The unit in the car was very small, but it followed the same design as all helper bots. It was a hovering disc-like unit that had two long, slender robotic arms attached to it, with hand units dexterous enough to perform most any household task. It was programmed to keep the car clean, both inside and out, inform Jason if it found anything wrong, like a tear in the upholstery or something, and could perform simple fetch and carry tasks like retrieving something out of a bag for him. When not in use, the helper bot was stored in a socket in the ceiling The AI in them wasn't that complex, but it was complex enough to able to be useful.

Ayama had an abject hatred of them and refused to allow one in the house, insisting on doing all the chores and cleaning by hand. That meant that Jason would have to keep the helper bot in the skimmer, else Ayama would do something truly graphic to it if she caught it doing something.

Helper bots were a Karinne product, because the Karinnes were the most advanced people around when it came to AI applications in machines. All the work they did on drones in the KMS and Rook's work with commercial bionoids had filtered down into civilian life in the form of a simple, relatively inexpensive robot that could perform fairly complex tasks. They'd been selling them for two years, and they were one of the House's best-selling products. They sold them all over the Confederation and beyond.

So, Jason was thoroughly enjoying his 92 minute trip from Joint Base Lambda back home, letting the autopilot do the work while he leaned back in his almost sinfully comfortable seat, took off his sandals and put his bare feet up on the dashboard, and read some reports on a handpanel that Chirk had sent while he was in his Cheetah. The first report was a very welcome one from Grik'zzk, concerning the terraforming operation over on Alakis. She reported that the orbital stabilization project had been completed successfully, with the planet now having a stable 11.4 degree tilt on its axis, which she felt was ideal for maximum agricultural output. The planet would have very mild seasons even at the poles with an axis tilt that gentle, and in about 217 years, the weather patterns would calm down to the point where the weather there would be very gentle. There would be rain and fronts and storms, but the planet wouldn't have too much violent or severe weather. The stabilization of the axis tilt meant that four of the super-ships they had there to do the job could be removed, but two of them would have to stay in a specific orbit to keep the axis stable, becoming permanent artificial moons. The planet was right on the border of becoming survivable without life support equipment—for them, it was within tolerance already for 62 species—and the next phase of the process was about to begin, organic soil infusion. As it was now, the planet was wrapped in clouds and it had been raining there for over three years, part of the water replication process, but that was going to scale back because they couldn't do the organic infusion of the soil with it raining so much. The water replicators would stop releasing vapor and would instead release liquid water into the ocean basins, in effect filling the oceans the way he would fill a bathtub.

That would have sounded outlandish to Jason 14 years ago, but he knew it was possible. They had 271 terraforming-scale water replicators, and they were set at strategic locations that would allow them to fill the three ocean basins that would form on Alakis. It would be like dripping water coming out of faucet filling a hot tub, but give that steady dripping water enough time, and it could do fill the tub. Between the rain that had already and would continue to deposit water into the ocean basins and the water replicators, Grik'zzk estimated it would take about three and a half years to fill the ocean basins.

A hologram of Songa appeared over the console, his feet nearly blocking the emitter built into the dash. _"Jason!"_ she said urgently. _"Come to the annex immediately!"_

"I'm about half an hour out from Karis, dear," he answered, looking up at her.

_"Go faster!"_ she ordered. _"I've already activated Cyvanne and FERA!"_

That got his attention, making him put his feet down quickly. "What's going on?"

_"We have another retrovirus outbreak, Jason!"_ she told him quickly. _"And this one is _not_ specific to the DNA of a family!"_

He gave her a long look, and then his heart nearly froze over in his chest. Another retrovirus! "Do you have it contained?" he asked as he put the car at max throttle and activated his priority beacon, warning traffic control that he had right of way over _everything_.

_"Not yet, we don't even have a clear picture of how many people are infected,"_ she answered.

"How many so far?"

_ "We have twelve confirmed cases, and they're scattered all across the entire planet. Jason, that is _not good_,"_ she said grimly. _"That means the virus has had time to spread across the planet before we detected it."_

"But the other one—"

_"Started affecting Miyai's family immediately upon infection. This one _did not_. It seems to have an incubation period before it starts affecting the victim, and during that time, the patient is _infectious_. In reality, we don't really know. We just detected the virus about fifteen minutes ago, and we haven't had time to figure out how it works."_

He gave a dark frown. "Is it like the Jaisho virus otherwise?"

_"Yes. The twelve cases we've found so far have all begun the transition. Jason, only _four_ of them are Faey,"_ she warned. _"Six of them are Terran, and two are _Sha'i-ree_."_

"_What_?" he gasped.

_"This virus affects more than just the Faey. It affects any species with _similar enough_ DNA to a Faey. For those that aren't sufficiently compatible, the virus is completely harmless."_

"How many species are susceptible to it?" he asked quickly.

_"Ten. Faey, Terrans, Shio, Rathii, Aridai, Sha'i-ree, Subrians, Keelo, Strath, and the Muri. Humanoid races like the Imxi and the Koui are showing no signs of susceptibility, but they can carry the virus. Jason, we don't know if the two Sha'i-ree will survive the transition,"_ she warned. _"Their DNA may be similar to Faey DNA, but we have no idea how the retrovirus is going to try to rewrite their DNA. It very well may kill them."_

"Do you think you can stop the transition?"

She shook her head. _"Once it starts, there's no stopping it,"_ she told him. _"The altered cells become highly aggressive and alter the cells around them without need of the virus. The only way to stop the transition is to kill _every single altered cell_. And once it progresses to the point it has in our two patients, it would kill them to try."_

"Cyvanne," he called, and a hologram of her appeared beside Songa. "What steps have you taken?"

_"I've ordered a complete planetary quarantine for all susceptible races,"_ she told him. _"They go to their homes and they stay inside until we tell them to come out. I'm arranging keeping them supplied using maintenance bionoids and robots so they don't have to leave their homes. No direct contact between them and any living thing. I've enacted a complete quarantine of the entire planet. No ships may enter or leave the atmosphere. I've mobilized FERA's response teams, and the other CBIMs are going to keep track of all quarantined citizens on their continents to make sure they're alright. We're going to mount sensor pods on KMS dropships and other assets to give Songa more sensor coverage. The medical sensor system is really only very sensitive in the large cities. The dropships will give her a more detailed view of what's going on in the smaller towns and villages. I've also activated the orbital sensor arrays we usually keep in standby and they're conducting sensor sweeps now."_

"Good deal. Songa, have you figured out how it's being transmitted?"

_"Not yet,"_ she replied. _"We're not detecting it in the air as an airborne agent, but it's clearly being transmitted by more than touch for it to spread to all five continents. We honestly have no idea how it's being transmitted, Jason. It's almost like it just _appears_ in the infected. Our medical scanners aren't even detecting it until it begins the transition. Like it's not a retrovirus until it is."_

"Which CBIM is assisting you with the research?"

_"Cybi primarily, but Cyvanne said that every CBIM is going to be assisting,"_ she answered.

He nodded. "Cyvanne, alert the other Generations and pull them from whatever they're doing and put them on standby," he ordered. "Raise the planetary shield and divert all inbound traffic to Kosigi, that will prevent anyone from trying to flee the planet in a panic." He blew out his breath. "Cyvanne, warn the council that we have an outbreak of a dangerous disease on Karis, and that until the emergency is resolved, the House is suspending all activities and obligations. And inform all trade partners that because of the medical emergency, all scheduled cargo that was going to arrive on or leave the planet is on hold until further notice."

_"I'll send that out now."_

"I'll be there in about ten minutes," he told Songa. "Cyvanne, warn Denmother about this and see if she can dig up a couple of Elder medical specialists to come and help Songa with the analysis. They know more about viruses than any other species, and besides, they have records on the original retrovirus that created the Generations. Maybe they can help."

_"Good idea, dear,"_ Songa nodded.

It was one of the longest ten minutes of his life. This was the worst case nightmare scenario that they'd been dreading since what happened with Miyai. Generation DNA was aggressive, and it looked like another virus had been altered by a Generation to create a new version of the retrovirus that created the original Generations, and this one was _extremely_ broad in who it could affect. It was even affecting non-Faey.

Sha'i-ree. If they survived, they would be _Sha'i-ree_ Generations. And Songa said that they were just one of ten races that were susceptible. Terrans weren't a stretch, since they were the most genetically identical to the Faey, but the other nine, they were genetically very, very similar to Faey and Terrans. Not similar enough to produce offspring, and in the case of the Shio not even similar enough to have the same color blood, but close nonetheless.

This was going to be very ugly. The planet locked down, a new retrovirus rampaging across the planet, with the potential of altering God knows how many citizens if they couldn't isolate the virus quickly and prevent it from infecting anyone else. All those new Generations, it was going to cause a massive strain on the house and the existing Generations, because they'd have to be trained…and there was no telling how gaining those powers was going to affect them. The existing Generations all lived by a strict code of conduct that ensured that their abilities didn't infringe on the rights of others, but how would these twelve new Generations act once they learned about what they could do? And how many more of them would there be before they managed to stop the virus? Hundreds? Thousands? _Millions_?

Good God, that would be an absolute nightmare.

Jason turned on the skimmer's vidlink and saw that they'd been getting it done. Every channel was broadcasting the same emergency message, that a state of emergency had been declared and all the affected races had to quarantine themselves at home immediately. The air traffic gravband channels were warning that the shield was going to be raised, so in about ten minutes, the planet would be sealed off from the outside, preventing the virus from getting out.

If it hadn't already done so. Songa said they had no idea how it was being transmitted, it had an incubation time, and that it didn't show up on medical scanners until it began to transition the host. There was no telling how long that virus had been on Karis, and how many people were carrying it…both those it could affect and those it could not.

He got Myri on hologram and issued a series of commands as he came in over the city of Karsa, then landed on the roof of the Medical Annex. Songa didn't meet him there, and he didn't expect her to; she was far too busy. He was directed down to the medical emergency office on the 83rd floor, the command center where the Medical Service would respond to a disaster or emergency. And this certainly qualified as both a disaster and an emergency.

"Any news while I was coming in?" Jason asked quickly as he rushed into the room, where Songa and three other red-coated doctors stood around a circular holographic table display that was projecting a map of planet. There were twelve red dots on that holographic globe, and they were scattered all across Karis. Four on Karga, three on Virga, one on Hirga, two on Kirga, and two on Sarga. They were all over the place…that meant that the virus had spread across the _entire planet_.

"Nothing new, dear."

"My God," Jason breathed in French as he looked at the map. Twelve was just the start. If the virus had spread so far, then there had to be others infected with the virus that hadn't started to transition. And if they couldn't find a way to stop the virus _fast_, they were looking at the worst case scenario that Songa had always feared.

Jason's heart sank as he looked at that map. He very well may order the planet permanently quarantined, and no one would ever leave Karis again. Those on Kosigi and their other holdings might be forever denied the chance to come home, leaving them exiles, vagabonds...unless he made the conscious choice to allow them to come home and be infected.

But that wasn't a choice he could make alone. Zaa and the Kimdori would have a big say in that kind of a decision.

"Cybi, assemble the cabinet for an emergency meeting," he ordered of her hologram, which floated nearby in her no-legs form. "And tell Tren, Grik, and Rund that I want a complete list of all resources available both on Karis and at our colonies and outposts. And warn Jrz'kii to bring the entire merchant marine in, just in case we have to move large amounts of cargo to keep people supplied."

_"Cyvanne's already done all of that, except call a cabinet meeting,"_ she told him.

"Did Zaa get back to you?"

_"Not yet, but she's aware of the problem."_

They discussed strategies to respond to the outbreak—Songa had long feared it could happen and had developed plans of action for it—then Jason went over to the White House complex to lead a very nervous and intense cabinet session. Everyone had done enough to at least present some basic information, from arranging for supplies to making sure quarantined people were well cared for while they were effectively imprisoned in their homes, when Songa interrupted the meeting. A flat hologram of her appeared over the meeting table. _"Jason we have three more confirmed cases. Two on Karga and one on Kirga,"_ she informed him. _"A Faey, a Terran, and a Strath."_

"Damn it. Are the sensor grids helping any?"

She nodded. _"We found the Strath by orbital scan,"_ she told him. _"The Kimdori brought in a large number of their sensor platforms and integrated them into our system. It's quintupled our scanning sensitivity."_

"Still no idea how it's being transmitted?"

She shook her head. _"Not even the Kimdori sensor platforms are detecting the virus. They're as puzzled as we are, dear. It shouldn't be possible for this virus to hide from a sensor scan. The only thing we can think of is that the virus starts out as something else, then once it finishes its incubation period, it mutates into the retrovirus. So we're doing extensive scans for any viral structures on the planet that weren't present when the terraforming department did the semi-annual planetary scan four months ago. If it is mutating from another virus, if we can find that virus and develop an antivirus for it, we can stop this before it gets out of control."_

"Good deal, dear. Keep us informed."

She nodded, and her hologram vanished.

"Not good news," Jerrim grunted, looking over at him.

"Tell me about it. Jrz'kii, how quickly can you put together a schedule?"

_"I can have a preliminary plan ready in an hour, Revered hive-leader,"_ she answered. _"My office has just finished compiling a list of available KMM assets on our side of the shield. With additional manpower added from the KMS and the planetary guard, I can draw up a plan that keeps all quarantined citizens supplied with sufficient food for however long it takes."_

"Keep it open-ended," he affirmed. "We have no idea how long we're going to need it. Jerrim, you and Grik work out exactly how much food we have, how long it will last, and how much we'll need to import to keep the planet fed. Myri, have the KMS bring in an orbital station that will act as the entry point for the planet," he told the hologram hovering to his left. "Work it out with Songa for maximum safety transferring food containers in through the shield, but I don't want any ship leaving the shield. If there's even the slightest chance the virus can attach to the hull of a ship and survive in space, it could potentially get out to infect the rest of our holdings. So keep in mind that any container that comes in through the shield _stays in_," he stressed. "Anything that comes inside the shield can't leave until we kill this virus."

"I'll have our factory blocks on Janja start manufacturing standard Stick shipping containers, just in case," Trenirk piped in. "We could run out of containers fast if they can't leave the planet once they come in."

"Good idea, Tren, do it," Jason nodded.

As they were about to wrap up the meeting, Cybi warned him over commune that Zaa wanted to talk to him. He excused himself as the other discussed a few final points and hurried to his office, which entered secure mode as soon as the door was closed. A hologram of Zaa was already inside the office, pacing back and forth in front of his desk. "Cousin," he called in Kimdori as he rushed towards his desk. "What news do you have?"

"Very little," she answered. "I've sent an entire staff of medical experts to Songa to assist, they arrived while you were in your meeting. Thus far, our scanners have been unable to detect this virus, either the retrovirus or Songa's theorized pre-mutated form. I've sent some merchant ships to assist in the movement of supplies, Cybi informed me that your Merchant Marine may need additional resources."

"Thank you, cousin. Did Songa tell you who's being affected by the virus?"

She nodded. "Two Sha'i-ree and Strath," she said. "That makes this the worst case scenario, cousin. This is a retrovirus not restricted to the Faey. It has mutated."

"I know," he nearly groaned. "I may need your help, Zaa. If we end up with thousands infected, that's thousands of neophyte Generations. With no training, possibly with quite a few expressing telepathic and telekinetic ability they never had before, and probably scared out of their minds. That's a recipe for disaster. I just hope that the Kimdori accept these accidents the way you've accepted us."

"They will be cousins, Jason," she said simply. "And we can teach them to respect their newfound heritage. Did we not accept Dahnai and her family?"

"Warily, as I recall," he said, which made her chuckle despite herself. "I've put the other Generations on standby, and I'm going to assume we end up with way more than 14 new Generations and organize them into groups that will be responsible for teaching these new Generations enough to hold them over until they can get more comprehensive instruction. I'll most likely put restrictions on the planetary biogenic network to lock them out of most of it. As it stands now, a Generation can cause quite a bit of mischief in the network. We never put those controls in because there was no need to do so. We original Generations obey the rules, but these new Generations…I don't know."

"A wise precaution, cousin," she nodded. "Cybi, are you listening?"

_"I am, Denmother. I'll talk to Siyhaa about it. She should have something to present in a couple of hours."_

"Cybi, have you had the chance to analyze this retrovirus? Can you tell if it just which Generation spawned it? That might help Songa isolate it and counter it. We can trace that Generation's steps to see where she has been, and who she may have been in contact with."

_"I haven't done that, Denmother. Give me a few minutes to analyze the data Songa has complied on the virus."_

"Clever idea, cousin," Jason said with admiration.

"It has to have been spawned by one of the Generations, the way Miyai did," she said evenly. "It seems that the dynamic aggressiveness of Generation DNA might have been a critical flaw in the design."

"Spilled milk, Denmother," he said calmly. "That decision was made close to 2600 years ago. It's too late to second-guess it now."

"I was alive when the Generations were created, cousin," she said absently. "It's not too late for me."

"Oh yeah, that ridiculous Kimdori life span," Jason said in a dry tone, at least attempting a little humor in this dire situation.

She took the appearance of sitting in the chair, then they discussed the dry and dusty numbers and figures of figuring out the logistics of the Kimdori giving assistance, from how many ships they were sending to bolster the KMM to how many Kimdori would be allowed onto the planet to potentially help Jason keep order if a very large number of citizens were turned into Generations and they became lawless or violent. Too many would overwhelm the current Generations, even with gestalts, so the Kimdori would bring in security forces in non-Kimdori forms to subdue any new Generation that may lose control or go rogue. They had some very hard debates over what to do with new Generations that wouldn't obey the rules, from imprisonment even up to the death penalty.

Zaa was still there when Cybi pushed through Dahnai. She appeared on a hologram in the situation room in her palace, where dozens of Faey staffers ran back and forth in a complete tizzy. "What's going on, love?" he asked her.

"It got off Karis!" she said in a nearly strangled tone, which made Jason's heart skip a beat. "We have nearly three thousand confirmed cases on _Draconis_!"

"Oh my God," Jason said woodenly, slumping back in his chair.

"I've ordered the entire Imperium quarantined!" she said quickly. "Every planet, moon, and station! No traffic! Jason, you have to order Kim to lock down Terra! If it spreads to Terra, it'll spread across the entire _Confederation_!

"Three _thousand_? Why so many when there are only a handful here?" Zaa asked quickly.

"Do I look like a doctor, cousin?" she demanded, giving Zaa a short look.

"That is critical information. Cybi, tell Songa," she ordered. "Have her get in touch with the Medical Service on Draconis. There's a good chance the virus originated on Draconis. If so, that means that Dahnai, her daughters, or Saelle is the origin. If we can isolate just which Generation spawned the virus, we can counter it much more quickly. It may have been spread here by members of the Imperial staff during one of Dahnai's stays at the summer palace."

_"I can tell you that now, Denmother,"_ Cybi called. _"I've analyzed the virus, and it carries elements of both Jason and Dahnai's DNA. It's not specific to either of them, and it's not spawned from Raisha. My guess is, the virus originated from one of them, spread to the other, and then mutated when exposed to the other's DNA, picking up elements of the second Generation. Given that Jason and Dahnai are two different species, it's not a complete surprise that the virus mutated when exposed to the second Generation. Generation DNA is exceptionally dynamic. This cross-species mutation is why the virus can affect species outside of them. It made the retrovirus _generic_,"_ she explained, _"and able to affect any species with DNA sufficiently compatible to them. The species most closely related to the Faey and Terrans are susceptible to the virus. And if the virus mutates again, even more races may become susceptible."_

"Oh God, please don't even make me think that," Jason said in a gloomy tone, scrubbing his hands over his face. "And now I know that _I'm_ responsible for this mess."

"It's not your fault, cousin. You have no control over how a virus interacts with you," Zaa soothed.

"And it's also my fault," Dahnai added. "But now we have to be responsible parents and minimize the damage to our three thousand new kids, Jason. I'm going to need your help. We're gonna have three thousand new Generations in a few days, and I have no idea how I'm going to train them. We have to send them to Karis to be trained."

"You're right," Jason sighed. "Though since the Faey are already telepathic, we won't have to deal with a potential newly expressed telepath put on edge because of all this, which would make him potentially dangerous."

"Truth," Zaa nodded. "But this does put Generations in the Imperium, outside of Dahnai and her family" she said with a slight edge in her voice.

"I'll talk to Kim," Jason said. "Dahnai, any word on if they've identified the virus and have a way to contain it?"

"Not yet," she replied. "But I'd suggest that you don't get anywhere near Banlia, baby. She's still utterly pissed at you over what you've been doing."

"That's her fault, not mine," Jason said, a bit pugnaciously. "And this is no time for a territorial pissing contest."

"If you want her help, you'd better allow the Medical Service to re-establish its chain of command on Karis," she said. "That chafed Banlia's ass more than anything else, when you told Songa to ignore any orders from their HQ. You interfered in the _Medical Service_, Jason, you just _don't do that_. Not even I would ever dream of doing something like that, it would get me bounced off my throne."

"I had a damn good reason for doing it," he said defensively. He looked down at his hands, and remembered what Aria told him. "But I think I know what Aria's omen was about. This," he said. "And the dream changed, Dahnai, so you'd better be exceptionally careful."

"Changed how?"

"In the dream, the dragon hits you with its paw before you can connect with your sword and you fall. I think that means that you'd better be _very_ careful how you handle this outbreak. Your throne might be on the line," he warned. "I think the dragon might be this virus, and how we respond to the outbreak is you and me attacking it in the dream. If Aria's dream holds, then you might make a mistake in your response that comes back to haunt you. So think _carefully_ about what you do," he told her seriously.

"I'll keep that in mind," she said with a nod. "I'll talk to Banlia, but I won't make any promises. I need to warn the council that the Imperium is under quarantine. Talk to Kim, babes, talk to him right now. If the virus is on Terra, we have to stop it before it spreads off the planet. If it's not there yet, then we have to do everything in our power to prevent it from getting there. An epidemic on Terra could threaten half the galaxy," she said seriously.

"I will. I'll keep an ear out for you, hon, commune any new information."

"I'll keep you in the loop, Zaa," she promised.

"I would appreciate that, cousin," she answered.

She spared Zaa a smile despite the situation. Even after three years, she was still tickled every time Zaa called her that.

Zaa listened as he told Kim to seal off Terra, then they attended a hastily called emergency session of the council, so hasty that only about fifteen rulers were present. The rest were aides. "A dangerous virus has broken out on Karis and Draconis," Jason told them from his office. "We haven't learned how it's being transmitted yet, and our medical scanners can't even detect it. Because of that, the House of Karinne has enacted a full quarantine of the planet," he explained. "Nothing that comes inside the perimeter of the planetary shield will be allowed to leave, not even cargo containers."

"The virus has also been detected on Draconis, so as a precaution, I've ordered a full quarantine of all 116 systems under the Imperium's control," Dahnai added, nearly interrupting him. "Because of how central Terra is and the fact that both Faey and Karinnes have visited Terra in the last two takirs, we've asked Kim to seal off the planet until we can determine if this virus has spread to Terra. Since we can't detect it with medical scanners, it's the safest thing to do," he declared. "The virus seems to have an incubation time, at least we think so, because the first cases we discovered were scattered across the entire planet. If the virus was carried by a single host, it had to have taken _takirs_ for it to spread so far across Karis without us detecting it."

"What kind of virus?" Kreel asked.

_[We're going to have to tell them,]_ Dahnai told him over the network. _[There's no way we can keep this a secret.]_

_ [No. If they find out that people can _become_ Generations, Dahnai, the Faey will never be safe,]_ he replied.

_[Jason is right, Dahnai. We keep this a secret, at least for now,]_ Zaa injected, using her memory band. _[If they find out that Faey are being turned into Generations, they'll try to get samples of the virus to engineer it to work on their own species, or they may try to kidnap Faey to turn them into slaves, like the Dreamers were.]_

_ [I didn't think of that.]_

"Right now, Kreel, I can't really answer that, because we know almost nothing about it. All I can say is that it's spread across Karis and it's serious. We haven't had any fatalities yet, but the people who have contracted it are in very serious condition. The Medical Service is working right now to isolate the virus and come up with a cure."

"It's the same here," Dahnai added. "So far the virus has only been found on Draconis, but I've put the entire Imperium under quarantine just in case the virus got off the planet. We can't detect it either. We have no idea how it's being transmitted or how many are infected, the only cases we know of are the people who have been sickened by the virus. But we're positive that people can _carry _it without it making them sick, that the virus has an incubation time, and during that time, the carrier is contagious. That's why we've asked Kim to quarantine Terra. If the virus got _there_, it could infect half the galaxy," she said urgently. "That puts all of us at risk. So far the virus only seems to be affecting Faey, but if it mutates, it could become a plague that decimates the entire quadrant."

"I think that's a wise precaution," Shakizarr said, one of the few rulers in attendance. "Jason we should delink the Stargates leading to Terra immediately."

"Terra has operational control of the Stargates, Shakizarr. Only he can issue that order from his side. But all of you can issue that order from _your_ side," Jason reminded him. "Remember, you have operational control of the Stargates leading into your territory. I suggest in the highest possible terms that all of you issue that order immediately. If the virus is on Terra, you must do everything in your power to keep it out of of your empires, or we'll have a galactic pandemic on our hands."

After a little more discussion, and much to Jason's relief, the rulers all ordered their Stargates delinked, as well as all catapults at Terra deactivated. He leaned back in his chair after he left the conference, then turned it around and looked out the window. And even from there, he could see how _empty_ it felt now. Everyone had been ordered home, even those who couldn't be infected by the virus, so there were no hovercars between the buildings, no pedestrians down at the fence hemming in the complex, no freighters taking off from the industrial district to the east. The city looked almost hauntingly abandoned, almost like when they first came here. The Kimdori rebuilt Karis as a nearly exact copy of the original city, but it had been empty. After all, at that time, there were only about 500 members of the house, Jason, the girls, the Generations, and a very select few Terrans brought over, like the members of the Legion. Was Karsa destined to become empty once again? Would the virus mutate into something deadly and kill them all?

He wasn't sure if he'd ever felt this afraid, even when the Consortium had besieged Karis. After all, that was an enemy he could see, and one he could understand. This virus…there was no telling what chaos it was going to spread across the House of Karinne.

There was no telling, there was only Aria's omen dream to give him a little hope. If he kept his head and reacted rationally, he was going to save the house.

But would Dahnai save the Imperium?

"I know, cousin," Zaa said, her hologram stepping up beside his chair. "But it will be alright. We will find a way to stop this before it gets out of control, if that is what you wish."

"What I wish?" he asked, looking up at her.

"There is always the choice to allow it to happen, cousin," she said evenly, looking down at him. "The Kimdori welcomed you as cousins when the Program was set into motion. We will accept our new cousins, because they will be family. And the Kimdori do not abandon family," she declared with quiet dignity.

"That does make me feel a tiny bit better, but I'd prefer not to turn a little over a billion people into Generations, Denmother. So long as there are only a small number of us, the risk we pose to the universe is contained. But that many of us, with the power that we have…I don't know. I may never let them off the planet. The shield may never come down," he said in a low, grim tone. "This planet may have just become a prison, containing the danger we pose, for as long as it takes. That wasn't what I wanted for Karis. For our people," he said, standing up and putting his hand on the transparent titanium. "All the work we've done, all the sweat, the tears, the blood, and it all comes down to this. To become prisoners on our own planet because we may very well destroy the outside world," he sighed. "And that's just us. To keep biogenics away from the Generations on Draconis, we'll have to turn Karis into a complete fortress. If they get their hands on a gestalt—" he closed his eyes and sighed. "And I am become death, the destroyer of worlds," he quoted in an emotionless tone.

"Let us see what happens before we reach that point, cousin," she told him, setting he holographic hand on his shoulder. "Who knows, this might be a blessing in a very frightening disguise."

"I don't see how, but I'd love to think so," he said quietly.

"You need to get out of this office and do something, cousin. If you sit in here and brood, you will only depress yourself."

He was about to say something, but Cybi manifested a hologram on the other side of the desk. _"News, friends. More infected have been detected."_

"Oh joy," Jason sighed. "How many?"

"_Nearly a hundred. Jason, everyone on the strip that can be affected is in transition. The strip girls, their children, the guards. Everyone that has been in close contact with you over the last month is in transition."_

"Why didn't the sensors around the strip catch it?"

_"Because it just started within the last twenty minutes, with _all_ of them. Jason, that is not natural,"_ she said. _"I have no records of any virus that will have infected different people at different times syncing their incubation time to begin affecting their hosts at the same time. Something had to have triggered this, some environmental factor must have incited the virus to either mutate or accelerate. Songa is investigating the matter, trying to find out what that might be in hopes that we can remove its effect and slow down the virus. And there's more. Now that we've had time to watch the virus, it's clear this is _not_ the Jaisho virus. This virus is specifically attacking the immune system first. It hijacks the white blood cells, antibodies, and T cells and turns them into carriers of the virus while simultaneously disabling their normal operation, spreading it through the entire body quickly. And with the host's immune system temporarily disabled, the risk of rejection of the gene therapy is drastically reduced. So, the good news is, there won't be many complications for those affected,"_ she reported. _"Songa predicts that only about one tenth of one percent of those affected will suffer any effects of rejection, and she's preparing all annexes and clinics to handle those cases as they arise. She's put in a request with Cyvanne to activate the emergency medical cloning facility on Joint Base Delta, and Cyvanne has approved the request."_

"That was the right call," Jason agreed with a nod.

_"The virus disabling the immune system of the host will make the transition for those infected very safe. There should not be any _Dahnai_s among those affected. The most prevalent side effects will be infections and secondary illnesses caused by the host's immune system being disabled during the transition, which can easily be treated."_

"Well, that is good news," he said, turning and looking at her hologram. "It affected everyone on the strip?"

She nodded. _"From Ayama and Seido to Mike Junior, as well as 17 people just outside the strip. Yeri and Rahne's husband Adam are among them,"_ she answered. _"As well as the entire guard detachment. It seems that you were carrying the virus for a while, Jason, and you infected everyone inside the fence."_

"Oh joy," he grunted.

_"Kumi is ecstatic over it,"_ Cybi noted dryly. _"She's always been jealous of the Generations. Now she has her chance to be one. I'll arrange training for them once they finish transition, particularly the guards. Being Generations will only make them that much more formidable,"_ she observed.

"Have Songa do everything she can to make the transition as painless as possible," he told her. She nodded, then demanifested the hologram.

"Curious," Zaa noted.

"What?"

"That the virus attacks the immune system first," she said. "I seem to recall some Terran virus that did the same. Could it have mutated from that virus?"

"The AIDS virus, and maybe. I did go to Terra last month for the council summit," Jason said, looking at her. "But that virus is transmitted _sexually_, and I didn't exactly do anything that would have exposed me to it," he noted dryly.

"Then perhaps Dahnai did. She also attended the summit in person," Zaa mused. "And if she had it, then you _definitely_ could have picked it up from her in the usual way the virus is transmitted."

He gave her a tart look, which made her chuckle despite herself.

They discussed the problem a while longer, then Zaa left to receive some briefings on the matter from her children she'd set on it, leaving Jason alone in the office. And all he could do was look out the window and accept some concerned attention from Chichi, who sensed his disquiet and came into the office to try to calm him down and cheer him up. The tabi laid in his lap and let him pet her, an act that soothed him. His friends and their children, infected. Yeri and Adam, infected. Aya and the other guards, infected. They would become Generations, and some small part of him was not unhappy about that. It meant that he wouldn't have to keep secrets from them anymore, and in a way, it would bring them closer together as friends and as a community. But those people, he felt, would obey the rules by which the Generations lived, since they knew what Generations could do and knew about how disciplined and careful the Generations were. But what worried him, concerned him, were the random citizens that had been infected, and would become Generations. Would they adhere to the strict code of conduct of the Generations, or would they go rogue and force the others to bring them to heel? Would it tear Karis apart as Generations fought Generations?

One thing he knew he'd better do right now was to install access systems on all non-imprinted gestalts so only Generations with clearance or permission could use them. That was never an issue before, but it might become one now. And he'd have to control access to imprinted gestalts, so that only those that earned the right to have one would get one.

And what would it be like to have Generations of new races? Seido and Merra were infected, would become Generations. There were two Sha'i-ree and a Rathii that were also infected. What would it be like for them? How would the transition affect them? Would they come through it alright, or would the attempt of the retrovirus to rewrite their DNA kill them? He was genuinely worried, particularly for Seido and Merra. Seido may be his employee, but she was also a dear, dear friend, as was Merra.

And what of Draconis? What about the three thousand Generations that would be outside of his control? Even without a gestalt, a Generation is a very formidable person thanks to their telekinesis and their powerful telepathy…and he had the feeling that those converted Faey were going to be strong talents.

Talents that would _outnumber_ the Generations of Karis.

But that was where gestalts would even the score. His people would have gestalts, and they wouldn't. If Dahnai needed his help to quell an uprising of converted Generations in the Imperium, Jason could send combat trained Generations using tactical gestalts hardwired to only allow them to access them to put down the uprising.

He could handle that, if it came down to it.

He had no idea what was going on, or what was about to happen. But the one thing he did know was that from this day forward, nothing would ever be the same again.

And he feared what the new normal would become.


End file.
